Improvised Shakespeare CompanyBased on one audience suggestion (a title for a play that has yet to be written) The Improvised Shakespeare Co. creates a fully improvised Shakespearean masterpiece right before your very eyes! Each of the players has brushed up on his "thee's" and "thou's" to bring you an evening of off-the-cuff comedy using the language and themes of William Shakespeare.09/18/2014Time: 7:30 pm

Secondary Cause of DeathBy Peter Gordon. If you thought 'Murdered to Death' was funny, just wait till you see this! Inspector Pratt arrives at Bagshot House with grim news for Colonel Craddock, but that's just the beginning. Who is the strange Polish Count? Is Henrietta really an army Captain? How does the eccentric thespian, Longfellow fit in to the equation? These and other characters make Pratt's return a chaotic nightmare as the bodies pile higher and higher.09/18/2014 - 09/28/2014Apple Hill Playhouse, 275 Manor Rd., Delmont, PAwebsite | map

Two Trips Music Director Manfred Honeck begins the season with the lovesick Hector Berlioz's opioid hallucinations in the visionary Symphonie fantastique. Also, YouTube phenom Valentina Lisitsa returns to display her virtuosity in Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. The program opens with another kind of trip, back to the boyhood summers of the young American composer Mason Bates, via his "Rusty Air in Carolina."09/19/2014 - 09/21/201409/19 - 7:30 pm09/20 - 7:30 pm09/21 - 2:30 pmHeinz Hall, 600 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, PAwebsite | map

The Elixir of LoveThis artist-driven performing arts company presents one of opera's most popular romantic comedies, Donizetti's The Elixir of Love. This production transforms the White Studio into "Adina's Cabaret" with the audience at the center of the action for an immersive opera experience. Performed in Italian with English supertitles. Maria Sensi Sellner conducts.09/19/2014 - 09/21/201409/19 - 8:00 pm09/21 - 3:00 pm

Ligonier Highland GamesWith the sound of pipes and drums, the 56th annual Ligonier Highland Games continues the centuries-long tradition of the Clans of Scotland coming together to celebrate in song and storytelling, to compete in dance and heavy athletics, and to socialize.09/20/2014Time: 9 am - 6 pm

Location: Idlewild Park, Rt. 30, Ligonier, PA

James McBrideJames McBride is the author of the 2013 National Book Award winning novel The Good Lord Bird, and well as the New York Times bestseller The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. McBride is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. McBride will focus on his life and on his newest novel, The Good Lord Bird, a story humorously narrated by the elderly Henry Shackleford, as he reminisces about his youthful adventures.09/22/2014Time: 7:30 pmCarnegie Music Hall, 4400 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PAwebsite | map